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| US reviews Kerry-Lugar aftermath |
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Monday, October 12, 2009
By Sami Abrahim
WASHINGTON: US officials have started reviewing the Pakistani reaction to the Kerry-Lugar Bill with a view “to addressing concerns expressed by our Pakistani partners” but are alarmed at how “falsehoods and myths” determined the discussion over the bill in Pakistan.
“We want to build a multi-dimensional partnership with Pakistan and the Kerry-Lugar Bill is the centre piece of that effort. We are offering $7.5 billion in unconditional military aid over the next five years for schools, clinics and roads. We are promising continued military assistance. But still some people distort our motives and spread lies and that is hurtful,” said one American official.
He said that President Obama’s policy was to listen to allies, so we will listen to Pakistanis. According to the official, the US will do “what it takes” to satisfy the Pakistanis and bring down the temperature. “We trust that your foreign minister will tell Pakistan’s parliament what he told us and that critics will realise their concerns were based on distortions of language that was put in by our Congressmen to satisfy their own concerns,” he added.
Briefing this reporter, a senior US official pointed out, “Perhaps, the language of the Kerry-Lugar Bill could have been more sensitive to Pakistani concerns, but the current language reflects the will of our Congress. More than 500 members of the two houses of Congress sometimes use language about other countries that is intemperate. That is not different from the way your parliamentarians criticise the US and use harsh language. But our sovereignty is not impinged by your parliament, saying the US is doing this or that, and if our Congress has made a few observations about past Pakistani conduct and said our secretary of State should report to them about some developments, that is not an infringement of your sovereignty either.”
Other US officials were at pains to describe the American law-making process and said much of the reporting in the Pakistani media on the subject was erroneous and in some cases malicious. “We do not want to criticise your media and respect its freedom but with all due respect many commentators are confusing reporting requirement of Congress with conditions or interference.”
Congressional staffers echoed the sentiments expressed earlier by House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman that the opposition to the Kerry-Lugar Bill in Pakistan was “a created crisis, by people who either haven’t read the bill or don’t want to describe it accurately, and whose goal is either to destabilise the (Pakistani) government, or challenge some of the Pakistani military’s priorities.”
Several dozen congressional delegations have visited Pakistan since the Kerry-Berman Bill started being drafted and many have briefed civilian and military leaders at all levels. They met opposition leaders too and everyone should have known the concerns of Congress even if the exact language of the bill was not finalised until recently. “Knowing that all the issues they are now raising their voices about — Jihadi centres, nuclear proliferation, civilian oversight over the military — were going to be in the bill, why did they not pay closer attention to what was being written?” one hill staffer asked.
One staffer said some people had acted irresponsibly by risking the US-Pakistan relations, jeopardising civil-military relations in Pakistan and undermining the good the Kerry-Lugar Bill does only because they hate President Zardari or some of his appointees. “They come to us to lobby for themselves, thinking wrongly that America makes or breaks governments in Pakistan. Why didn’t they come to us to discuss what language we were putting in the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill,” she added.
“The whole debate over how far Pakistan’s government could have influenced the language of the bill, especially words that are supposed to have offended your military, ignores the fact that this bill is an American bill. There are members of Congress who will say it is an insult to the US to suggest that some Pakistani officials can or should dictate to us what words to use in our law,” said an irate Senate staffer.
He pointed out that the Indian Caucus in Congress is thrice as large as the Pakistani one and that Senators Kerry and Lugar and Congressman Berman had to go out of their way to bring opponents of any aid to Pakistan to tone down their opposition. The Senate staffer also stressed that even President Obama at the peak of his popularity had not been able to get Congress to change its mind on his Healthcare bill, which is still stuck in Congress, and to think Pakistan could have done better with a different set of leaders, lobbyists or negotiators is “the height of lack of information”.
US experts blame the political opposition and some “reckless anti-American elements” in the Pakistani media for creating the crisis by presenting the bill’s language in a negative way. “These are the same people who spread false rumours about Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan and falsely alleged that one thousand marines were coming to Islamabad. Many of them were cheerleaders for the Taliban in the past”.
American officials believe that PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif stayed away from the debate and even kept in touch with US officials from London so that his party could attack the US over the Kerry-Lugar Bill, but he would still keep his options open. “The opposition parties were simply cynical and showed no regard for US-Pakistan ties,” observed one diplomat. The government’s response was weak under the opposition attack and most ministers knew little on the subject to be able to stop the attack in its earliest stages.
Some Americans believe that the opposition and its media sympathizers manipulated public sentiment by distorting the bill’s contents. For example, many TV talk show hosts repeatedly said that the Kerry-Lugar Bill requires US oversight on promotions and other internal operations of the Pakistani military. As pointed out in a US Senate fact sheet, “there is absolutely no such requirement or desire.”
This disinformation stems from an item to be included in one of the US monitoring reports, which could have existed even without the bill. It requires the secretary of state to describe the extent to which civilian authorities exercise control over the Pakistani military. It does not require such control, nor does it place any restriction whatsoever on Pakistan. This benchmark, like all benchmarks in the monitoring reports, is informational. It presents a data-point on which US policy-makers can base decisions.
“How is our Congress telling our government what information to share with it an infringement of Pakistani sovereignty?” a Senate staffer wondered, adding that those who put out the disinformation did so deliberately to drive a wedge between civilian and military leaders in Pakistan and to manipulate public sentiment.
Regarding what they described as the military’s “carefully worded” response issued by the ISPR, the Americans say they see it as “a response to furore generated by the media and politicians.”
“The Pakistani military cannot afford to be seen as being out of touch with public sentiment, and how the people feel affects the commanders,” is how a US official put it. The intent of the ISPR statement according to him was to dampen the debate by saying parliament should examine concerns, but it was exploited by some to exacerbate the crisis, he said.
“We have learnt a few lessons here about how to improve our public diplomacy and anticipate that anything, we do will be seen negatively in Pakistan so we should be prepared. But we hope the government, the opposition and the media have also learnt something. Created crises, motivated by hatred of some government leaders should not rock the boat and risk depriving your country of much-needed resources,” a Senate staffer emphasised.
He pointed to the harsh words of usually anti-Pakistan Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman, who said he had no interest in a partnership characterised by “suspicion, resentment and political manipulation.”
Even the head of the Pakistan Caucus in the House of Representatives, Sheila Jackson-Lee voiced surprise at the Pakistani reaction though she refrained from characterising it as manipulated or contrived. She said, “My colleagues in Congress and I designed this legislation to help the people of Pakistan” and called upon Pakistan’s National Assembly to endorse the bill for its “altruistic” nature.
“Pakistan has consistently been a crucial ally in the fight against al-Qaeda, and I expect this assistance package to enhance our already strong bilateral relationship,” Sheila Jackson-Lee observed, adding, “I firmly believe that this assistance package will create important educational, democratic, and economic opportunities for the people of Pakistan.”
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ISSN 1563-9479 
